With the younger lot pushing the top paddlers in the men’s and women’s events, quite a few juniors managed to excel in the senior category too of the 11Even Sports National-ranking (Central Zone) championship. The youngsters had to tackle not only their seasoned opponents, but also to the different types of balls for juniors and seniors.
Due to lack of availability of the preferred DHS balls, the brand that is used for most competitions worldwide, the TTFI was forced to use the Nittakoo balls for seniors and Stag for the other four categories.
With the seam differing extensively, it had a big impact on the players’ performance. While Manav Thakkar, the top-seed in junior and youth boys, coped well — he made it to the men’s quarterfinals too — others like Sreeja Akula couldn’t. The latter stormed into the final of the women’s section, but fell in the second round of youth girls, her main event.
“Since the DHS balls didn’t arrive in time, we had no option but to switch to Nittakoo. Since Nittakoo’s stock was also limited, we had to use Stag for the age-group categories,” said N. Ganeshan, competition-manager.
